Advertisement:

Most people masturbate, although it's not something you'd bring up in polite conversation. However, it's given quite a different treatment in fiction. Unlike Nobody Poops or No Periods, Period (where the function is simply not mentioned because it would be Nausea Fuel), masturbation in fiction often fits into a few different categories:

It's aimed at or about teenagers (usually Played for Laughs) and the character is usually a horny teenage boy, and another character, usually the parents, think that he's masturbating when he is very obviously (or sometimes not so obviously) not.

In porn or erotica, it can be used for the sexual titillation of the viewers.

Of course, there's a pretty valid reason why "normal" masturbation isn't depicted very often — it's actually quite a mundane and meaningless thing (see People Sit on Chairs). There aren't many ways that masturbation could advance the plot of a story, and because it's generally a solitary activity, there usually won't be any character interaction involved.

Also note that male masturbation is used far more often than female (except in porn, for the above-mentioned reasons)... though that's not to say that female masturbation isn't given any attention in fiction (the "Rumpelstiltskin" tale supposedly had the original message, "women who masturbate become infertile"). In older media, expect references to hairy palms and/or blindness, two widespread myths used to keep boys from masturbating.

Satou from Welcome to the N.H.K. is shown to reach for a tissue every now and then, and after discovering that there's lolicon on the internet, he is shown surrounded by empty tissue boxes. In the manga, this goes further — his porn obsession eventually leads him to build a massive customized rig just for pornography, complete with cavernous hard-drive, several monitors, high-fidelity headphones and a leather massage chair. In his parents' spare bedroom. Needless to say, it does not end well.

In Gankutsuou, Héloise is shown masturbating while thinking about the Count and the poison ring he gave her. Squick.

Both husband Makoto and wife Yura are shown to do this in Futari Ecchi. Makoto does it out of frustration at not having been able to have sex with Yura for several days. Yura does it on her sister's advice to teach herself "what feels good."

Farnese in Berserk is shown to be turned on by people burning alive to the point where she spends some "alone time" thinking very hard about that. Berserk is like that.

Konuma Ryuuko of Wolf Guy - Wolfen Crest is a nymphomaniac middle-schooler with what appears to be profound psychological damage from repeated rapes in her past, but she's such a nihilistic sociopath that even this isn't enough to make her sympathetic. Notable acts include breaking into the protagonist's apartment to masturbate and (unsuccessfully) seduce him, and climaxing on a school rooftop after a bloody shooting.

Ichi the Killer has one of the most Squick-tastic examples ever. Ichi cuts his palm with a knife and masturbates to the sight of his favorite prostitute being beaten and raped by her husband.

Serial Experiments Lain: Lain's friendship with Alice breaks down when one of the Lains spreads rumors around school that she likes to fantasize about a certain teacher while "playing with herself".

In the beginning of Midori Days, Seiji bemoans this being his fate, as his badass Delinquent status actually seems to make it harder to get a girlfriend. He specifically says being stuck "with his right hand for a girlfriend", then it happens literally. Ironically, having Midori on his hand effectively prevents him from masturbating, as she throws out all his porn. A few chapters are dedicating to Seiji attempting to relieve the built-up pressure, but Failure Is the Only Option.

Ax-Crazy Sako of Upotte!!! gets far too turned on by the heat of battle in episode 5 and fondles her magic spot out of pleasure behind a tree. Moments later, she masturbates, with the stuff visibly dripping off her hand- er, if anthromorphized assault rifles actually can do that sort of thing.

In episode 4 of Kokoro Connect, Taichi tells Inaba a secret that he hoped to take to the grave with him after she reveals that she worries a lot and can't trust anyone. He said he masturbated to pictures of her, as well as Iori and Yui. Inaba seems shocked at first, but then starts laughing. At the end of the episode, she also reveals one of her secrets, she did the same thing with his picture.

Bird's Nest does this after running into Leo juggling for a crowd on the street in Copernicus Breathing.

Implied a few times in Wandering Son chapters, especially when the characters have begun high school. The protagonist in particular is prone to scenes that cut to a bathroom, after they've interacted with their girlfriend.

In the fourth episodes of the second season of Rozen Maiden, the dolls said that Jun is in the toilet reading "magazines."

The 61.5 and 66.5 omake chapters both end with Usui dryhumping his mattress after having two separate wet dreamsabout Himegami.

Love Espada does it during chapter 90, by glomping Takeru from behind to rub his crotch. Takeru's mind goes blank, so Espada takes advantage by shoving his hand under her skirt and uses it to rub herself.

In OVA 2, Ceilia gets jealous when she catches Takeru fondling Ms. Aki and uses her Inversion ability to change him into a girl. When he regains consciousness and realizes what's happened, he heads to the bathroom to take "her" new body for a spin. The audience only gets to see it from behind as she props one leg on the sink and begins thrusting her hips. It immediately cuts to the hallway, as her moaning intensifies until her voice hitches, followed by brief silence, then a sigh of contentment.

About halfway into the OVA, there's a brief scene of Aki masturbating in her sleep. She's shown squirming on the couch, as she rubs herself through her bikini bottom. Her moaning causes Minori to wake up from her hangover just as Aki gets herself off. Thankfully, Minori was still too drunk to notice.

In Koe de Oshigoto!, Kanna is scolded for not doing this after taking home some examples of eroge... for training purposes, of course. What makes it funny is that she managed to... achieve the same effect without actually involving her hands or any physical stimulation whatsoever. Everyone else, like Motoki, are all straighter cases, and they use their hands.

B Gata H Kei features both female and male leads doing this; more often in the manga, and more often the girl. She states that there are two types of masturbation: the "good" kind, doing it to relieve frustration, and the "bad" kind, doing it out of boredom. She is then shown making a tally of the dozens of times she's done the "bad" kind in the last few weeks.

Panty & Stocking with Garterbelt devotes a whole episode to a tissue shortage that is disastrous because no one can masturbate. Turns out that the tissue shortage was caused by the Ghosts of wasted sperm.

Because Genshiken is a manga/anime about Otaku, it features the characters reading or talking about Doujinshi. Most Doujinshi are erotic, and the series alludes (or more than alludes) to several of the main characters (male and female alike), ah, getting use out of them for the sake of comedy.

Tajima from Big Windup has a habit of talking about his masturbation habits in front of others, much to the chagrin of his friends.

Variable Geo: The rules of the tournament enforces it as the penalty for losing any match at rank-1, by having the loser strip in the ring and masturbate for the crowd.

in Love Hina, shortly after Kitsune allows Keitaro to grope her in exchange for a month's rent, Naru catches him in his boxers with a box of tissues next to him. Not too difficult to guess what he was about to do.

Comic Books

Y: The Last Man: Mentioned several times, seeing as virtually the entire male population has died. One women casually mentions the difficulty of finding replacement AA batteries for vibrators, and titular last man Yorick tells of one extensive 'session' where the government installed open-air showers outside a hotel he was staying in.

In the Aliens vs. Predator comic book, a Marine left to guard the base is told there's some petroleum jelly in the supplies "in case he gets lonely".

During Neil Gaiman's run on The Sandman in the early 90's, he was explicitly told by the editors that nobody masturbates in the DC Comics universe. In Gaiman's own words, "actually, that explains a lot. Thats probably why the characters all dress in tight costumes and go around thumping the shit out of each other."

The plot of the porn comic Small Favors opens with lesbian Annie being informed by an aspect of herself that she's exhausted her lifetime allotment of masturbation time. The photographic evidence supplied is a stack of photographs at least a foot tall... all of her masturbating at different times, all taken on the same day.

Lost Girls: Dorothy masturbates for the first time while a tornado is passing through her farm and dangerously close to her house. According to her, she didn't know what she was doing, but thought she was going to die, so why not?

Empowered: The title character does this a lot, as does her best friend Ninjette. In Emp's case, it's because her super-suit massively enhances sensation and increases libido; she mentions that she never even bothers with "Mr. Shower Head" since she got it.

Transmetropolitan: My name is Spider Jerusalem... I masturbate constantly and fling my steaming poison semen out the window onto your hair and food.

Horndog: Issue 3 has a strip that reveals that Bob has the ability to perform oral sex on himself.

Deadpool: One story ended with him having to honor an old bet he made with a classmate when he was younger. He had to give him a set of porn magazines. Wade apologized for some of the sticky pages and said they had "extra love".

Plutona makes much of Teddy's unfortunate choice to masturbate in the school bathroom. He was inevitably caught.

In the dreaded My Immortal, Lupin is caught "masticating" in the bath to a video that he and Snape took of Ebony. Later on she says that he "MASTABATED (c is dat speld rong)". (Yes.)

Neon Genesis Evangelion lemon fic A Glass of Wine has Asuka calming an anxious and embarrassed Hikari that "taking care of herself" will get rid of her wet dreams since such dreams are indicators that her brain is craving for an orgasm. Hikari is initially against the idea (no surprise there, knowing her character) until Asuka finishes the job herself. For the cast's most innocent girl.

A humourous fanfic by the creators of Bag Enders featured an adolescent Pippin being upset because his mother had told him kittens would die if he masturbated and he'd found a dead kitten in the garden and been convinced she was right. Merry gave him a kitten so he could watch it and stop if the kitten started looking ill to prove it wasn't true. Unfortunately, Pippin couldn't bring himself to do it with the kitten staring at him, so Merry ended up spending several evenings sitting in the next room and watching the kitten for him.

Helen suggested that patience was a virtue. Hermione retorted that virtuosity was much more important than virtue. Richard suggested that if she wasn't virtuous any longer, he should definitely meet the cause. He nearly crashed when, instead of blushing and stammering, Hermione offered him her hand instead, saying "Daddy, meet my fingers."

Pokémon fanfic communities refer to it as "handshipping". On one board, there was an actual flame war between handshippers and the "other-handshippers", which lead to the obvious joke.

In Hermione's Brilliant Idea Harry asks if Hermione masturbates. After she says yes, he mentions using the shower for his own self-gratification.

In Just A Child, Kobayashi engages in some self-pleasure whilst thinking about Tohru eating her out.

The The Loud House fanfic Caught revolves around one of Lincoln's sisters accidentally walking in on him doing this. It is revealed at the end that he was only trying to get a pen to work.

Comes up in The Power Of Seven, ranging from Ginny teaching Luna how to do it by stripping down to show her what to do to Harry seducing Demelza into a mutual session of it in the Quidditch changing rooms.

In The Web Of The Spider Man, Flash accuses Peter of "late night browsing" when he falls asleep on the bus. Peter had only been watching YouTube videos last night, but he admits that it's not like he's never done it.

The ribbing was still really annoying though. What made it worse this time was that he wasn't all wrong. Y-You mean, of course he was wrong about what he was insinuating you were looking up, you'd never, well, you mean not never, like Uncle Ben said you were a growing young man and your body...

Films — Live-Action

Vincent of Pulp Fiction spends some time in the bathroom psyching himself up to not give into the temptation to have sex with Mia Wallace (because she's the wife of his boss), and mentions masturbating to relieve the tension and "get over it" once he gets back home. But given Vincent's general track record of bad things happening when he goes to the bathroom during the movie, things do not end well.

In the movie Dogma, Rufus the Apostle attempts to prove to Jay and Bob that he's really from heaven:

As Gene Wilder's Victor boards the train from New York he overhears a married couple arguing behind him:

Woman: Harry, he's been at it again. Man: So, what do you want me to do about it? Woman: Every day! Man: Let him! Let him!

When Victor arrives in Transylvania via train, he overhears another couple having the same argument... in German.

Later in the film, Victor is disconsolate after his attempt to re-animate the Monster is (he believes) unsuccessful.

Igor: You know, I'll never forget my old dad. When these things would happen to him, the things he'd say to me. Victor:[interested] What did he say? Igor: "What the hell are you doing in the bathroom day and night? Why don't you get out of there and give someone else a chance?"

Comes up in There's Something About Mary. Mary tells her friends she doesn't need a man, she has a vibrator. Later, Ted's friend encourages him to "spank the monkey" before his big date. This doesn't lead to the main character getting caught with his pants down, but to the movie's signature hair gel scene.

In Being There, Eve tries to seduce Chance The Gardener; when he tells her "I like to watch" - he's referring to television - she proceeds to pleasure herself on the floor.

In Secretary, Maggie Gyllenhaal's character indulges herself while thinking of her sadomasochistic relationship with her boss. This causes many male audience members to later follow suit...

There is much pitch-black comedy in the viciously depressing Korean movie Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance (from the director of Oldboy). Of note here is a scene where four young men are seen masturbating together, their ears pressed to the wall to hear what they believe to be the moaning of a woman nearing climax. What they are hearing is in fact groans of pain from a young woman suffering from kidney failure.

Zack: How come you get to be all Buck Rogers, having sex in the 25th century with Twiki and Dr. Theopolis, and I'm stuck with a bottle of Jergen's in the bathroom? Miri: Holy Bejeesus, tell me you don't use my Jergen's to whack it in our bathroom. Zack: No, you know what I do? I light a bunch of candles, and I sprawl out on my sheets, and I listen to Sting. No, I'm a guy. You give me two Popsicle sticks and a rubber band and I'll find a way to fuck it, like a filthy MacGyver!

In Kinsey, several people study a video of a woman masturbating to learn more about human sexuality.

In Human Nature, a man masturbates in front of another person, which is meant to show that he is unaware of society's taboos.

Very brief scene in L.I.E., in which we see Howie in bed—and only from the neck up, mostly—but it's obvious what he's doing.

In Woody Allen's 19th-Century Russian Lit parody Love And Death, his character meets a gorgeous countess. After a room-wrecking bout of sex she compliments his abilities — he shrugs and says "Thanks... I practice a lot when I'm alone."

In Annie Hall, Woody Allen's character Alvy and Annie are arguing and he focuses on a pretentious school course she's taking:

Volare: Do you realize what I was doing at the age of seven? Flakfizer: I can imagine and you must be thankful you didn't go blind. Volare: I was dancing professionally! Flakfizer: Whatever you call it. Flogging the carrot, polishing the cuestick, choking the chicken, clearing the snorkel...

Crazy Stupid Love: Robbie does it while thinking of Jessica his babysitter that he loves.

In the BiopicThe Runaways, Sandy West tries to masturbate, but complains that she cannot feel anything. Joan Jett suggests she think of the hottest guy she knows, but it doesn't work. Joan then suggests she think of Farrah Fawcett. After switching to a shower head it works.

The first scene in Mel Brooks "History of the World, Part 1" ("The Dawn Of Man") starts with ape-men with a rising dawn behind them rising from sleep and then masturbating until they fall back down again, exhausted, all in silhouette.

In the film Real Genius, the plucky charismatic underdogs implant a radio in the braces of the pompous, sycophantic Kent. Kent thinks he's being addressed by the voice of God. At the end of one transmission, Mitch adds, "And Kent? From now on, stop playing with yourself!" Kent wonderingly murmurs, "It is God."

But I'm a Cheerleader: While poking fun at the ridiculous notion of a camp for curing homosexuality, the movie shows a couple of girls releasing their sexual frustration. The girls are all given small electric prods to punish themselves when they have "impure" thoughts; one girl gets creative with hers. And a short scene of the main character rubbing herself through her nightgown almost got the film an NC-17 rating.

The title character in Saint Ralph does this in a pool while looking at a naked woman's buttocks, without any hands. The water jet in the pool causes him to have an accident.

In Slackers there was a scene where a male character had to steal something from a female character's dorm while she wasn't there. After trying the door he was impatiently allowed in by the female character's (also female) roommate who was annoyed at having been interrupted masturbating. She continues to masturbate (quite enthusiastically) in the main room while he goes to the bedroom to find the whatever it was.

Cthulhu (2007). A flashback shows the protagonist and his friend as teenagers jerking off together under a pier while talking of the female movie stars they fancy; ironically it's a Ho Yay scene as both of them are gay, but presumably have not admitted this at that stage in their lives.

The teenage boy in Serial Mom. While his parents are being murdered, no less.

In the sex-ridden Y Tu Mamá También, the two male protagonists are quite open about their bodies and sexual functions together, and have a dual wank on the diving boards by the pool. A mysterious white liquid then falls in the water.

The Invention of Lying: The basis of this movie is that everyone tells the absolute truth all the time. So when Mark shows up early for a blind date with Allison she tells him she's just been masturbating.

The Book of Revelation: Another more disturbing example occurs in the Australian film. Daniel is captured by a group of anonymous women and, among other forms of sexual and psychological torture, is instructed by one of the masked women to masturbate. She then begins to masturbate herself, standing over him, before he defiantly tells her than when "every man masturbates, he only thinks of himself". Ouch!

The protagonist Marie masturbates in the French horror film High Tension after seeing her best friend Alex showering through the bathroom window earlier that night. Since she's listening to her walk-man during the act, this prevents her from hearing the killer get into the house until the murders are well under way.

Nick Twisp does this off-screen right within the first 30 seconds of Youth in Revolt.

The memorable 1979 sex-education film Am I Normal? is all about this. Hilarious in its well-meaning ineptitude, the film combines typical earnest sex-ed material with the story of Jimmy, a lad going through puberty. As just one illustrative example of the painful "comedy" in Jimmy's story, at one point he's at the library, where he has to ask a hard-of-hearing librarian for help by loudly exclaiming "I want to know about the male penis!" One patron is so shocked by this that his toupée does a flip-take, flying several feet up off his head.

The 1994 film Spanking the Monkey used masturbation as a thematic and symbolic plot device (as the title suggests). The young protagonist's sexual frustration as he cares for his convalescing mother is compounded by the fact that he never gets to successfully masturbate.

The feature film Serenity (based on the Firefly series) has a scene where a frustrated Kaylee gripes that "going on a year now, I ain't had nothin' twixt my nethers weren't run on batteries!" Much to the dismay of most of the crew, who were standing near her when she mentioned this:

Mal: Oh, GOD! I can't know that! Jayne: I could stand to hear a little more.

There's a scene in Mulholland Dr. where Naomi Watts masturbates angrily while crying. She's spiralling into depression and a mad jealousy, after a roller-coaster romance with another woman ( which may all have been a paranoid delusion anyway) leaves her feeling emotionally abused.

The remake of Psycho recreated the original virtually shot-for-shot... except that, at the end of the peephole scene, Norman glances downward, and the sound of a closing zipper is plainly audible. Kind of obvious in retrospect.

In Single White Female, the mentally disturbed Hedy masturbates after seeing her roommate have sex.

The scene in Pleasantville comes to mind. Some serious repression up until that point, to set a tree on fire.

In Velvet Goldmine, Arthur Stuart (played by Christian Bale) is caught masturbating by his father, and is kicked out of the house for his perceived crime. It's unclear whether the father just took a really dim view of masturbation in general, or if he noticed that his son was looking at a homoerotic image.

The original Shrek movie finds Lord Farquaad in bed ordering a disgusted magic mirror to show him the princess... again! Farquaad peeks under the covers as though confirming some pleasant surprise. The scene seems intended to make him more creepy and villainous.

In The Silence of the Lambs, Miggs, the prisoner in the cell next to Hannibal Lecter's, masturbates and flings his semen on Clarice Starling. It's this unforgivable "rudeness" that compels Lecter to aide Starling.

In Being There, the repressed and unhappy Eve masturbates in front of Chance when he says he "like[s] to watch," not realizing that he means it literally, and he calmly flips the channels on the TV while she writhes around.

In Ace Ventura: When Nature Calls, the titular character masturbates (as seen by his shadow) in a hut after a close conversation with the tribal princess. He gets walked in on by the correspondent who accompanied him. His excuse is he was just "practicing my mantra" and will finish his "meditation" in 10 minutes.

Black Swan: Somewhat averted in that Nina's time alone is suggested to her by her ballet instructor (yes, it's that kind of movie), but Nina clearly has massive psychosexual issues.

In A Serbian Film, the main character's brother talks to the main character's wife about being single, and then takes a trip to the little boy's room to (predictably) masturbate. It doesn't help that at another part in the movie, a porn director talks about how the main reason porn is popular is so people can "cum into a napkin what they couldn't into a woman."

Starinski experiences Death by Sex shortly after helping himself to a dead German soldier's porn stash and proceeding to, well, help himself in Deathwatch.

A character in Full Metal Jacket was nicknamed "Hand Job" for his habit of masturbating at least ten times a day. It's also an example of the "mental health/sexual frustration" variety of masturbation in that the other recruits referred to him as a "crazy fucker" and that it ultimately got him scheduled for a Section 8 discharge* Section 8 is a military discharge for those deemed mentally unfit for service when he was caught doing it in the waiting room after being sent to see a Navy psychologist, and he ultimately would have gotten shipped out if not for him getting killed by a VC booby trap.

Not exactly the "military setting" described above, but: In The Right Stuff, the astronauts have to provide a sperm sample. The Battleaxe Nurse tells them, "the best results seem to be from fantasization, followed by masturbation, followed by ejaculation." So they head to the bathroom stalls, and the Marine starts humming From the Halls of Montezuma, and the Air Force guy joins in with Off We Go Into the Wild Blue Yonder...

Lloyd masturbated so he could sleep after the Captain Trips superflu killed everyone in the prison but him.

The fat, homely and awkward Harold was nicknamed "Whack-Off Lauder" in high school from a rumor that he habitually masturbated into his pants. Throughout the story he gradually becomes more fit, attractive, and confident, practically thriving in the post-apocalypse world... but there are still disastrous consequences for the torment he was put through.

Roland Deschain provides personal compensation by stating the fact that even though he's missing a few fingers on his right hand (a previously fine tuned killing machine of a hand), it's fine because "I jack off left-handed."

In a flashback, a fourteen year old Roland was planning to do this until he is called aside by Marten to show him that he's been having sex with Roland's mom. He tops off the scene by telling Roland "I hope you enjoy your hand."

In another flashback, Susan Delgado masturbates for the first time a few hours after meeting Roland.

The young, psychotic Detta Walker indulged in this while doing destructive things such as breaking plates.

In The Talisman, when Jack meets the friendly bumpkin Wolf in the Territories, Wolf starts casually playing "pocket pool" in his overalls while explaining his role as shepherd.

In The Frog King Harry resignedly wrings out 'a wank only Henry Ford could love' while his girfriend is drunk and in the shower less than five feet away.

In The Shockwave Rider, Nick Haflinger moves into company housing of his new employer. He notes a kit which seems standard for such housing in the future. It contains videos, a mask with scents, and a device which women can leave pushed out and men can push in...or not. He reminds himself that he should use it a few times...but not too often. As the company will be making note of it.

"Guts", the infamous first story from Haunted which deals with stories of masturbation gone horribly, horribly wrong. Considering it's by Chuck Palahniuk, it's not really a surprise.

A female example in the Night Huntress books. Cat is just beginning to accept her own sexuality. A few hours after making out with her love interest, she takes a bath and accidentally touches herself. Then she does it on purpose, and then she starts to get really into it.

A weird but very sweet version in The Red Tent. In the time of Jacob in the Bible, when girls get their first period their female relatives have a ceremony for them and uses a goddess statue to gently break their hymen, letting the blood soak into the earth. It's a warm, loving and even humorous ceremony; the girl is given drugs to help her relax. The main character Dinah actually has an orgasm.

In Isaac Asimov's The Gods Themselves, a race of parallel universe is featured which can (to an extent) control their own density and are having sex by merging with each other. Alternately, they can use the decreased density to either pull the tips of their limbs through each other (the feeling afterwards was described by someone as "nicely sleepy") or by trying to merge with a rock. To those who still don't get the analogy, the latter is called rock-rubbing. Both are considered socially unacceptable.

Similar passages in Blume's Then Again, Maybe I Won't have made the book a favorite target of censors. Or perhaps it's because of the boy protagonist's nocturnal activities.

In Tales of the Otori, sexuality in general is given generally pragmatic treatment: occasionally it's an important part of the plot, but for the most part it's just in the background of the characters' lives. As such, masturbation is mentioned, but only... off-handedly.

Skinny has a rather squicky scene where a young girl masturbates while in the tub.

In Robert A. Heinlein's To Sail Beyond the Sunset, a wife, who has an open relationship with her husband, asks him over the phone if he's going to pick up a woman that night, and he admits he's too tired, it will just be "mother thumb and her four daughters."

A staple of Philip Roth's oeuvre; his characters, whether sexually repressed or otherwise, are generally more likely to masturbate than to engage in actual sex. Portnoy's Complaint takes it to the extreme: the titular complaint is that, apparently, Jewish men aren't supposed to masturbate, while the protagonist does it a lot throughout the course of the book.

Anatomy Of A Boyfriend: The main character is unable to experience "the big O" with her high school sweetheart. So after they break up, her friend buys her a personal massager. It's not for her back.

Swoff: Suggested techniques for the Marine to use in the avoidance of boredom and loneliness: Masturbation. Rereading of letters from unfaithful wives and girlfriends. Cleaning your rifle. Further masturbation. Rewiring Walkman. Arguing about religion and meaning of life. Discussing, in detail, every woman the Marine has ever fucked. Debating differences, such as Cuban vs. Mexican, Harleys vs. Hondas, left- vs. right-handed masturbation. Further cleaning of rifle. Studying of Filipino mail order bride catalog. Further masturbation...

Lawrence Waterhouse from Neal Stephenson's Cryptonomicon spends one chapter complaining to himself about how his sex drive is inversely connected to his math skills. He comes up with a technological euphemism: "Manual Override". There are even graphs.

Actually, there's so much (not illogical) technical language in that section that by the time the plot resumes the reader has almost forgotten that the topic is types of sexual experience.

While Liir is in the Household Guard in Son Of A Witch, it is noted that he doesn't masturbate... much.

On the other hand masturbating during guard duty is strongly discouraged in the novel Beaufort by Ron Leshem, about an Israeli Defense Force outpost in southern Lebanon.

Pops up in Lord John And The Succubus, where one officer uses the euphemism "boxing the Jesuit", and their Austrian hosts don't get it. Lord John has to explain by way of hand gesture.

Seaman: "I've beat off so many times in the shower that I get a hardon every time it rains!"

When Ciaphas Cain and his aid Jurgen get stuck on an escape pod for three weeks, Ciaphas spends time at sword practice and Jurgen locks himself in the cockpit and entertains himself in ways Ciaphas prefers not to muse over. Hint: Jurgen is an established connoisseur of porno slates.

A subversion appears in a somewhat obscure POW narrative from WWII called Yanks Don't Cry. When the camp doctor claims the mass outbreak of night blindness is being caused by masturbation, all of the men are horrified by the very suggestion that they could be masturbating. This may be because the author didn't want to admit to whacking off when the book was published in 1947, or have more to do with the prevailing attitudes towards masturbation at the time. At any rate, he mentions the burning envy every man felt for one inmate's ability to have lucid wet dreams whenever he wanted.

A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway. The Italian officers in the mess tease the priest (who doesn't go to the brothel) by saying: "Priest every night, five against one!"

In the novel and movie Little Children; Ronnie, who is a registered sex offender and pedophile, goes on a date with a cohort to suppress his urges, then he feels so awkward being with her that he drives to a playground and masturbates in front of her.

The book Fools Die mentions the ex-wife of one of the characters is advised by her psychiatrist to set aside some alone time each day to use a vibrator. Everyone in the house, including the children, refer to it as the "Happy Hour."

An episode of Rob Brydon's comedy-drama series Human Remains has Rob playing a man whose compulsive masturbation apparently stems from the loss of his mother.

There are constant jokes at Richard's expense in Bottom to show how pathetic he is (he is, in fact, a wanker). He even called his autobiography: "Richard Richard: I Did it My Way. On My Own. Quite a Lot. Now I've got a Sore Hand."

There's an EXTREMELY uncomfortable example of female masturbation in season two Skins. Maxxie's stalker Sketch breaks into his house, sneaks into his room, fondles and smells his underwear, and proceeds to masturbate on his bed. When Maxxie comes home unexpectedly early, she quickly hides under his bed — where she stays for the rest of the night.

In a 30 Rock episode, Frank mentions he has plans for Valentine's night. When asked with who, he replies "nobody".

Firefly: "I'll be in my bunk." It must be *ahem* hard for Jayne, being trapped on that ship with Inara, Kaylee, Zoe, and River, and not able to touch any of them.

True Blood. After drinking vampiric blood to heal herself, Sookie has her libido amped up, and she begins to stroke herself at night. In a later scene she's seen rubbing herself through her shorts to satisfy her lust.

Jason however, has a much worse run in with vampire blood. He overdosed, and he didn't need healing, so it all went to his libido. He jacked off until he developed a sore on his hand, and finally had to go to a doctor to deflate his penis.

When a character on Bones swears off men, her unsatiated libido compels her to hit on any male she meets. To quell her advances, one of her co-workers brings his psychiatrist girlfriend to the lab, who quite sensibly recommends some solitary release as an alternative.

When Mr. Fisher the depressed assistant gets in trouble for sleeping with a suspect, he replies:

Mr. Fisher: Can I please keep my job if I promise never ever to have sex again with anyone, which, by the way, suits me temperamentally? I happen to be very self-sufficient.

Near the end of his dementia-ridden father's life, Mark Greene on ER had to stop his dad from engaging in public masturbation.

Played for Laughs in The Big Bang Theory when Howard, after seeing how good his robotic hand was and how real it felt while massaging his back, decided to gave the hand another use. That was until it jammed.

One of the Alien Nation TV movies makes a reference to Jocelyn Elders' firing when Susan worries that Buck doesn't have an "outlet" and wants George to talk to him about not letting his fluid build up. The Tectonese are more frank about sex than most Americans, so Susan doesn't see what all the fuss was about.

Brass Eye reported a story about American senator Dale Lee Aggsby "Extracted his genitalia at a rally and manipulated them to issue" "Several quarts of reproductive mucous were expelled rhythmically into the crowd". It seemed he suffered from Prestodidwick's Congina, a rare blood disorder which causes involuntary erective pressure.

The crew of Red Dwarf generally don't have much choice about this, there seldom being any women around:

Cat: You mean after all this, I still haven't got a date? Damn! Another year when I have to send a Valentine's card to my hand!

Rimmer (On learning he has (briefly) become alive again): Kryten! Unpack Rachel, and get out the puncture repair kit!

Fem!Rimmer: How could you even contemplate making love to yourself? Rimmer: Well, why break the habit of a lifetime?

In Mad Men, Betty Draper leans against a running washing machine and orgasms while fantasizing about a door-to-door salesman who had visited the day before. (She's sexually frustrated because her husband is rarely home, and when he is he often claims to be too tired. The real reason? Like any self-respecting early-'60s executive, he has multiple girls on the side.)

One of the episodes is named "Combat Jack" for the Marines' masturbating after the adrenaline rush of a firefight.

The book itself actively describes Marines going through this; in one case, there's even a quote from one Marine who said he had to do it three times in rapid succession, and was worried something was broken down there.

"Hey, reporter! If you lay with your cock against the ground when a tank goes by, it feels fuckin' great!"

Family Feud: Questions that include a euphemism for "masturbate" are asked on a regular (at times, seemingly daily) basis. One common example is to the question, "Name something a squirrel does with a nut," to which an answer was "scratches it." ("Nut" being slang for a part of the male crotch, and scratch being the "masturbate" synonym.) However, the answer came up once during the Richard Karn-hosted era, when during an NBA Stars special, a contestant answered "masturbate" to the question, "Name something a teenaged boy could do all day?"... and it got him two points!

Tuvok rather guiltily uses a holodeck when he Ponn Farrs in Star Trek: Voyager. He balked at first and had to be talked into it. He did not go blind.

It was not mentioned when Reginald Barclay got into trouble for using the holodeck with simulated other members of the crew who (in his holodeck simulation) practically worshiped Barclay. It was merely mentioned that it was wrong of him to simulate them, but no mention was made of the obvious potential there.

In "Descent", Data mentions that he's tried to do this as he's attempted to explore his emotions, but to no effect.

Seinfeld infamously had the episode "The Contest", where the main four made a bet over who could go the longest without masturbating. In place of the usual slang terms, the Unusual Euphemism "master of your domain" was used to mean someone who could successfully resist the urge to masturbate. Elaine was forced to place a larger bet since it was assumed that as a woman she would have an easier time resisting than the men, however she was the second eliminated. Kramer was eliminated almost immediately thanks to a nudist moving into the building across the street who liked to keep her curtains open. A later episode revealed that George ended up winning the contest. However, in the Grand Finale he confesses that he cheated, making Jerry the true winner.

In "Sons and Lovers", Aeryn Sun suggests sex would be a practical means of relieving the Unresolved Sexual Tension between her and John Crichton, without all this weird human emotional-attachment stuff he's into.

John: You know what? I got two hands [makes masturbating gesture] I can alternate, I can release all the tension I want. I don't need your charity. Aeryn: And I don't need your emotions. But we can have sex if you want.

In "Look at the Princess", John is pointing Braca's gun at different parts of his own body. Including, at one point, his hand:

John: My sex life! Kill my sex life!

In "Coup by Clam", Noranti decides to use the vibrating apparatus she's working with for something it was not originally intended for. This left D'Argo, who was mindlinked to her at this point, in an awkward situation. An odd case of A Date with Rosie Palms by proxy.

A subplot of an episode of Black Books features Fran attempting to get off on the Shipping Forecast (no, not that kind of Shipping) because she finds the announcer's voice irresistibly sexy.

Discussed and shown every so often in Sex and the City, one of the more memorable instances being Charlotte's "addiction" to the Rabbit vibrator, necessitating an "intervention" by her friends.

Comes up quite a few times on Scrubs, most notably J.D. hurting his "me-time hand".

Also when J.D. says to Turk "Why don't you take care of yourself?" Turk responds he's only ever done that twice in his life. J.D. says the same but his monologue adds "If by "in my life" you mean "since dinner".

Dr. Cox also gives this advice to Turk:

Dr. Cox: I'll be more than glad to tell you what a lot of doctors do to relieve the stress: Just take a little trip to "Palmdale." Turk: What? Dr. Cox: Okay. Give yourself the old "low-five." Turk: I'm not getting it. Dr. Cox: Physician, love thyself. Turk: Are you talkin' about down-town, Lester Brown? Dr. Cox: Lowers the heart-rate, releases the endorphins. It's basic physiology.

Elliot also discovers the joy of masturbating in one of the earlier episodes (thanks to Carla's advice about washing machines).

A reference was explicitly removed from an episode of Monty Python's Flying Circus: during the "All-England Summarize Proust" competition, Graham Chapman lists his favorite hobbies as "strangling animals, golf and masturbation", which forces the host to kick him out seeing as 'golf's not very popular around here'. The BBC forced them to remove the word from reruns, despite objections from the cast. "Everybody masturbates!" Terry Jones apparently retorted to the head of quality control. "Don't you masturbate, sir?" Unfortunately that didn't work, and most home video copies contain the clumsily edited version (though notice the subtitles include 'masturbation')

Drew: Let me tell you, ever since I was thirteen / You've given me the best lovin' that I've ever seen. / Let me tell ya something, that I know you can't stand / I've been cheating on you with my other hand!

House has on multiple occasions made snarky jokes about viewing porn in his office and masturbating. Given most of the walls are made of glass one hopes he is joking. Being that he's House, who knows.

Appears to be true, and not just a House snark. At least we know from Cameron that he keeps his porn in the second desk drawer.

There's also a rather squicky clinic scene where House deduces that a toddler's symptoms are result of this.

When Wilson was staying with House he arrives at his apartment to find a stethoscope on the doorknob:

Wilson: You said... you'd hang the stethoscope if you were having sex. House: I didn't say it had to be with another person. Wilson: [...] I was waiting out there for hours! House: Well, I need a lot of foreplay. And then there's the cuddling afterwards.

As of season six, we now also have House freaking Wilson when he walks into the living room to find House is "picking lint out of his belly button." Which he later happily admits he wasn't actually doing. In addition, in Private Lives his answer to Wilson's question about what he's doing that night is simply a gleeful "Masturbating!"

When House went bowling with Chase (in "No More Mr. Nice Guy"), he explained that this was because bowling isn't "one of the two things guys do by themselves." Chase, knowing House very well, asked what the second thing is... "Other hand," replies House.

In How I Met Your Mother, Marshall was worried about "reading a magazine" at work. Barney answered that he (Barney) "reads a magazine" several times at work. Barney was talking about masturbation, whereas Marshall was talking about taking a deuce at work.

Also in episode 13 of the sixth season, he's asked to do it in order to get his sperm checked by a doctor. However, it becomes quite difficult to carry out...

Johnny Vegas, on an episode of QI, joked that Kellogg's Corn Flakes were designed to prevent masturbation in young boys.

Spaced: and suddenly — phht! Bingo! You wake up. And you're lying there sweating, desperately looking for the tissue which you know is still in your pocket, and the remote control which is somewhere on the floor, and it's like walking in on yourself, you know? It's just like "What you doing?"

Mal alludes to masturbation in the episode "Our Mrs. Reynolds", where he comments that "no one but me's taken hold of my plow in a good long while."

Though she doesn't do anything visible, River also has an intense reaction to Zoe and Wash making out on the bridge in "Objects In Space," and, in the Big Damn Movie, she spies on Simon and Kaylee making love in the engine room.

In one episode, a 12-year-old girl is found to be sexually abused and her brother is suspected when his semen is found on her nightdress. He gets interrogated harshly but can't stick up for himself until Nick quietly takes him to the side and tells him that there's nothing wrong with masturbation. The brother then admits that the nightdress was the closest thing he could grab to clean up after himself but that he was too ashamed to tell the police this. It was her dad, who had also raped her.

In a more serious example, a peeping tom's activities kept escalating, which, according to Catherine, would eventually lead to breaking-and-entering and rape (they did). The clue to this was that, while earlier he had limited himself to peeping and stalking, they suddenly found evidence of him masturbating at the scene.

Used in the episode "Out on a Limb" of Arrested Development. Lindsay notes that she has hit 3 climaxes in one night plenty of times. A flashback clip shows she is by herself during such

Nancy Grace asked what a caller would think the buzzing sound is on her phone as compared to Scott Peterson's when she covered his murder trial. One of the lawyers suggested that the caller would think it's her vibrator.

It's referenced a few times on Supernatural. The most blatant example comes in "I Believe The Children Are Our Future", where, due to the influence of the Antichrist, Dean winds up with hairy palms. His explanation? "Got bored. That nurse was hot."

A That Mitchell and Webb Look sketch features a pair of self-employed work-from-home types who meet at a party and, while their wives are getting the drinks, admit to each other that they've yet to fully overcome the 'have a lot of covert wanks while my wife is out the house at work' issue.

In a third season episode of Entourage, Johnny Drama is filming his first scene in a new television pilot. However, as the director keeps making his monologue longer and more difficult, Drama starts to have a panic attack. However, remembering advice that Turtle gave him earlier, he proceeds to release some stress. Of course Drama being Drama, he forgets to turn off his microphone and the whole studio crew hears him

The 10-year-old Sally Draper in Mad Men is caught masturbating (fully clothed) to Ilya Kuryakin while at a sleepover at a friend's house. Neither the friend's mother (who caught her) nor Betty was amused. It's possible she simply didn't know what she was doing, though - it's not uncommon for children younger than her to realize that touching yourself in certain places feels good, and it's likely the sexual education classes of the early 1960s wouldn't have helped to clear anything up...

In an earlier episode, the team try to find a way to advertise something that claims to be a way of losing weight, but really is actually a device for female masturbation. (Or, 'a way of simulating a man, without the man'.) When Peggy first tries it on and realizes what it is she is shocked, but by the end of the episode, she is seen looking at it speculatively and pulling it out of the box.

On The Colbert Report Stephen reacts to political candidate Christine O'Donnell's claim that masturbation is a form of adultery by marrying his hand, just to be safe. In a later episode he's shocked to realize that that might make him gay because he's been "doing it with a dude."

In That '70s Show, Fez, Eric and Kelso, mainly Fez, have mentioned their fondness for hands-on love. We don't know about Hyde, but he voiced his support for the practice — when Fez asked how much masturbation is too much, Hyde responded, "There's no such thing as too much."

Nina, Fez's co-worker and later girlfriend whom he finally loses his virginity to, lampshades this by noticing that Fez's right hand is "stronger" than the other. Fez just says he's taken up fencing.

It's also mentioned, that Donna does it too, but she "makes an evening of it", with music and candles. Hyde wonders whether Jackie masturbates also, but he reasons that she doesn't, because "she won't even go to a self-serve gas station."

Kelso gets a job donating sperm at a sperm bank. The gang is in the basement sharing a bowl of popcorn, when he comes back from his job. He takes the bowl, dips his right hand in to take a handful then asks, "Who else wants some?" Everyone yells, "NO!"

In one episode, someone has been breaking into the record store, so they set up a camera, and they find out Fez has been living there.

Fez: I thought I was alone... Hyde: I've known Fez for a long time. And if he thought he was alone, we need to turn this off right now.

Sid from Skins is shown masturbating in the pilot episode, although it's debatable whether he falls into the "nerdy loser" version of this trope. Knowing Skins, there are probably definitely a million other *ahem* meetings with Rosie Palms within the show.

Buffy herself alludes to masturbating to a friend in 5th grade. "I moped over you for months. Sitting in my room listening to that Divinyls song 'I Touch Myself'". Which she pretends to have not known what it meant at the time. Considering Willow and Tara "doing spells" together — well, they are into magic (and each other) — Xander says, "Sometimes I think about two girls doing a spell together... and then I go do a spell by myself." ** In season 7 Andrew has locked himself in the bathroom to edit his documentary on Buffy.

Anya: For God's sakes, Andrew. You've been in here for 30 minutes. What are you doing? Andrew: Entertaining and educating. Anya: Why can't you just masturbate like the rest of us? ** When Xander tells the others he's taking Anya to the prom:

Xander : Choice is kind of a broad term for my situation. See, it's either Anya or the sock puppet of love for this boy. [holds his right hand in puppet shape, speaks in silly voice] "I love you, Xander. I'll never leave you."

Buffy's not the only Slayer to do this. In "Chaos Bleeds", upon finding a stake Faith might comment on keeping it under her bed as a dildo. Ya gotta pity whoever that thing's used on after she's put it Lord knows where. The comics suggest she still does this.

Then of course there was the episode "Hush" where it looks like Buffy's idea of beating the Gentlemen is to beat them off.

Willow accuses Oz of doing this when he won't see her. Turns out it's because he's about to turn into a werewolf and he wants to protect her.

In the episode "Band Candy" all the adults are turned into children, and Cordelia says her father was doing this in the bathroom.

In a spoof Very Special Episode of Roseanne in which D.J... *cough* figures out how his plumbing works and ends up spending over an hour in the bathroom, Darlene explains to their puzzled father (and the howling audience) that it means "...he's either really good at it... or really bad at it."

My Wife and Kids: Junior manages to "sprain" his penis from overuse on one episode.

An episode of The Hughleys had D.L.'s wife remark that their son's been taking two to three showers a day now, and must be "the cleanest boy in the neighborhood." D.L. and their neighbor exchange knowing looks, and the neighbor replies "or the dirtiest." The two men then use a series of artful euphemisms to gently explain to the mother what's really going on. Hilarity ensues through the episode, as with every appearance, their son says or does something suggestive of his new hobby, like furiously pumping a bottle of mustard to wring out the last few drops.

On The League of Gentlemen, Harvey Denton has a bizarre paranoia about walking into the living room to find his nephew, Benjamin, "shaking the hot, white coconuts from the tree of love", "conducting himself in a solo symphony", or engaged in any other of a slew of Unusual Euphemisms.

In The Young Ones, Rick has accidentally killed Neil. He buries the body in the garden, then can't sleep as his conscience reproaches him. He imagines himself on trial, then imagines some pretty girls in the courtroom pleading for him to be spared, then imagines them taking their clothes off, then he starts wanking off until his conscience yells at him to stop it.

In Parenthood the grandfather — concerned about the ecological impact of Drew taking five showers a day—decides they must have The Talk.

Degrassi as it already tackled No Periods, Period back in Season 1, had a plot in Season 8 over self-gratification. Jane admits to Clare and Alli she does own a vibrator, acting in a Big Brother Mentor fashion that being interested in sexual gratification isn't a bad thing, and it's a good thing to seek it from yourself. Eventually Clare gets 'the talk' she wanted from her mother over these subjects. She called it awkward.

In Black Books, Fran's subplot in the episode "The Big Lockout" basically involves her having a wank while listening to the shipping forecast because she finds the voice of the guy who's delivering it irresistibly arousing.

In the US version of Queer as Folk, Ted has watched so many porno tapes that when a customer asks the cashier of the porno shop for a suggestion in which tape to rent, the cashier directs the customer to Ted.

On Teen Wolf in the eleventh episode of season 2, when Coach Finstock is finally going to let Stiles, who is normally a bench-warmer, into a lacrosse game this comes up.

Stiles: I'm playing? On the field? With the team? Finstock: Yes! Unless you'd rather play with yourself! Stiles: I already did that today. Twice.

Taboo: Cholmondeley asks James if Laura Bow is free for him to pursue, luridly exhorting that she's so pretty that she's not just someone he wants to sleep with but masturbates about.

Dear White People: Lionel in Episode 2 to the sounds of Troy screwing the women he has over one of them turning out to be Coco in Episode 3 - he manages to "go all the way" in the end of the episode.

Preacher (2016): Herr Starr starts masturbating in the middle of a wrestling match, while he's being held in a chokehold. It turns out it's a tactic to distract his opponent, which works.

"Shores of California" says that "The girls are crying and the boys are masturbating" because guys want sex and girls want romance. The music video includes a hilarious scene where Amanda hands a tissue to a crying girl...then hands one to a boy.

"First Orgasm" is about a lonely girl masturbating on a Thursday morning and eventually declaring, "I think I could last at least week without someone to hold me".

"Coin-Operated Boy" is an ode to vibrators.

From "Telepathy" by Swans: "I saw you through the window/Masturbating to the violence" (by the standards of M. Gira's work, this is a fairly tame example)

"Homemade" by Sebadoh is about becoming addicted to masturbation due to depression and loneliness.

"Touch of my Hand" by Britney Spears is about appreciating self-love in the absence of one's partner.

"Oops (Oh My)" by Tweet; she admires herself in the mirror while touching herself.

As is their song "Crackerman". Slightly more subtle than "Unglued" but still painfully obvious in the first stanza.

The Australian band The Divinyls has a song titled "I Touch Myself"; you can guess what that implies.

Ska band Desorden Publico has a song, "Manuela", who is half Intercourse with You, half this trope, down to the title (who is a transparent allusion to the way "Rosie Palms" is known in Spanish). To add controversy to the mix, part of the lyrics are taken from real letters that the Liberator Simon Bolivar sent to his lover Manuela Saenz.

Mexican Hard Rock band Cuca also has a song called "Manuela". Translated loosely, the first verse has the singer bragging that because of his ...habit, he "is a being incapable of being manipulated, because he's self-sufficient, and even believes he's intelligent"

There's an old Cuban song "Manuela no me pelea" ("Manuela doesn't fight with me"), about a man who lives a wonderful life because he can party late and his wife Manuela doesn't get mad and fight him. Anyone who doesn't get this—whether or not they speak Spanish—is officially living under a rock.

"Blister in the Sun", by Violent Femmes. ("Big Hands, I know you're the one...")

Masturbation is pretty much the signature subject of British comedian Ivor Biggun, who has at LEAST half a dozen songs about it such as "I'm a Wanker", "The Wanker's Rock and Roll", and "Wanking Your Blues Away".

Mindless Self Indulgence's song Masturbates. The name says it all, really.

"Boy" by Book of Love": "I sit at home at night, and play with my toys"

Captain Jack - "Little Boy".

"Guys Eyes" by Animal Collective appears to be about masturbating so as not to look like all the narrator wants his girlfriend for is fox sex. See lines: "I really want to do just what my body wants to, I really want to show to my girl that I want her", "I want to do what my body needs to, I want to show to my girl that I need her", and "I started using my mind, And I used my hands, It was what I want to do"

"Darling Nikki" by Prince from the movie Purple Rain begins out with "I knew a girl named Nikki, I guess you could say she was a sex fiend / I met her in a hotel lobby, masturbating with a magazine." This was the song that prompted Tipper Gore to establish the PMRC and require the Explicit Advisory sticker on raunchy recordings.

Subverted by the video for Jessica Simpson's song A Public Affair, of all places. When Jessica and her hot friends come up to the counter to get their roller skates, the attendant reaches into his pocket and starts digging in his pants. Jessica and her friends are Squicked out until the attendant pulls out his camera, whic is what he was actually reaching for. The girls are both relieved and happy to pose for pictures.

"The Big 'M'" by Lust Control

"Depuis que tu n'es plus là" by the French comedian Max Boublil sounds like a romantic song at first but it really is about masturbation. He even says that he is going to marry his right hand.

"Dancing With Myself" by Billy Idol. " Well there's nothing to lose, and ther's nothing to prove, I'll be dancing with myself"

Billy has said MANY TIMES that it's about Japanese dance clubs. And yet no one really listens...

Mr. Bungle has "Girls Of Porn", a funky song about the world of porn and all it's crazy little genres, obviously Played for Laughs. Then they have the song "Dead Goon" a song about a loner kid who dies while participating in a round of auto-erotic asphyxiation in his mother's panties and the family walking.

"Pink Thing" by XTC ("When I stroke your head I feel a hundred heartbeats high"). Word of God is that it's about a father's love for a newborn baby, but it's so full of innuendo that there's no way Andy Partridge didn't have a double meaning in mind.

"You're Makin' Me High" by Toni Braxton is mostly Intercourse with You, but the song begins with "I'll always think of you inside of my private thoughts/I can imagine you touching my private parts/With just the thought of you/I can't help but touch myself." It doesn't help that she starts moaning in the background towards the end of the song.

Explicitly subverted again years later in the single "Your Body" from her following album Lotus

We're moving faster then slow/If you don't where to go/I'll finish off on my own, oh-oh, yeah/Hey boy!

Da Yoopers' "Da Couch Dat Burps" is preceded by a skit in which the singer (Sandy Kempa) says, "Sex is like bridge. If you don't have a good partner, you better have a good hand."

Much later, on We're Still Rockin', they did a punk-styled song about how "shuckin' da cob" made the singer a man, despite his parents telling him it'd make him blind.

W.A.S.P. - Animal (Fuck like a beast).

"Turning Japanese" by The Vapors is rumored to be about this, if only because it's anyone's guess what it's actually about. The lyrics describe a guy who's lonely with only a photo of his lover, which is giving him funny feelings. According to this rumor, the title refers to how squinting while having an orgasm makes an Anglo person's eyes look East Asian.

"Black on Black" by Dalbello contains an indirect reference: "Turning water into wine, touch yourself and you go blind..."

"America" by Gianna Nannini. Which is not about America. But who knows, the text being in Italian?

It's strongly implied that some porn found in the trash is the "woman" that the Casanova Wannabe protagonist of Red Vox's "There She Goes" ends up settling for after his multiple failures in dating.

Got a new woman Found her in a trash can Think this is the woman, baby, I really do Better tell my hand

It's not just masturbation, it's an orgy for one It's a fucking celebration, it's an orgy for one

Myths & Religion

In Egyptian Mythology, this was how the world was created, by the god Atum masturbating the universe into existence. It's even squickier in the R-Rated version of the myth, where Atum actually ejaculates into his mouth, whereupon he spits out his children Shu and Tefnut. No joke, Egyptian theologians debated for centuries whether the world's first female was Atum's hand or his mouth.

Guess what Zeus, his brother Poseidon and his son Hermes did simultaneously onto a bull skin in order to create the hero Orion. Most versions say they urinated into it, actually. The name Orion means "the urinated one"

It's the very same god Hermes who, according to Diogenes, taught the trick to his son Pan pining for the nymph Echo, to relieve his suffering. Pan, in turn, learned the habit to the shepherds.

The Bible: An older name for masturbation, onanism, comes from a misinterpretation of a passage in the Hebrew/Christian book of Genesis, thus making the trope Older Than Dirt. The actual event mentioned was Onan having sex with his late brother's wife. (This was practiced to keep the dead person's line from dying out.) Not wanting to sire a child that would not have been considered his, he "spilled his seed" (pulled out before climax) on the ground instead, and was stricken for his disrespect.

Pro Wrestling

Referenced in a zing by CM Punk in his MST3K-like commentary of WWE NXT Season 3 (the Rookie Divas season) during a promo challenge when one of the Divas talks about the old "view people in their underwear" public speaking trick.

One of the constant complaints made by Los Hermanos, a member of the titular hero team in the Global Guardians PBEM Universe, was that he felt an overwhelming urge to do this every time the team encountered Cheesecake, a supervillainess whose pheremone-based powers made her irresistible to all men, everywhere. Cheesecake couldn't turn Los Hermanos into a lovesick puppy as she did with every other male hero... all she could do was make him extremely uncomfortable.

Tabletop Games

Regent Fokuf in Exalted is regarded as a completely boneheaded puppet leader for the Realm for two reasons. One is that he rubber stamps anything that comes past his desk without a care for the contents. The other is that he spends the rest of the day getting off on the saucier passages in the Realm's religious documents.

Me and My Dick: Unsurprisingly has this as it's about sexual organs. Joey and Dick try to masturbate in the opening scene even! Later Vanessa and Flopsy imply they're about to.

In the musical Spring Awakening, it's mostly played for laughs when Hanschen is masturbating to a post card of a girl, but he is also sexually disturbed as he dreams of raping her.

Be More Chill starts out with Jeremy (a single teenage boy) trying to get off quickly before school. He doesn't succeed. Jeremy doesn't seem too proud of it ("If I continue at this rate, the only thing I'll ever date / is my Macbook Pro hard drive!") and when he gets his hands on a Squip, one of the first things it does is tell him to stop masturbating.

Video Games

Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas has a gag where Maccer, one of the Brit junkies, starts "having an appointment with Dr. Hans Jerkov" in Madd Dogg's studio.

It's a sort of running gag—the guy is apparently addicted to it.

When ordering a Riflemen squad to move something in Company of Heroes, the unit leader may reply to your order with: "Drop your dicks and move out!"

Mass Effect has a very subtle mention of this if a male Shepard decides to rebuff Ashley's advances toward the end of the game. She shrugs and says she'll head back to her own bunk to "find my own entertainment". A specific dialog choice when asking Kaidan about his past will have Shepherd indirectly, but pretty obviously, ask if he and the other teenagers in biotics training coped with boredom, loneliness and home-sickness with mutual masturbation; Alenko replies that it's not the sort of thing he does "lightly".

That is a possible interpretation, though Occam's Razor would suggest Shepard thought they were hooking up and having rather than engaging in mututal masturbation...

In Mass Effect 2, there's a quarian on Ilium who mentions that she's had a neural stimulator (which "every responsible adult has") installed on her suit, capping off a background conversation about her breaking it off with her human boyfriend. Her turian friend (and probably the player) goes "what" at this knowledge. Sadly, it's only then that they notice that you're listening in...

Quarian: Ugh, excuse me human, private conversation?

Tali's dossier in the Lair of the Shadow Broker DLC hints very strongly at this — along with her lingering crush on Shepard.

Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty: In an optional (and hysterical) scene, Snake can call Otacon on his CODEC while playing... with his "Solid Snake" during the Tanker Mission. Raiden can be indirectly accused of doing this later.

Snake's response removes all doubt. "You were watching?!"

In Disgaea 2, Tink mentions that old habits (taking long showers) die hard, even though he is a frog.

Lovely Rod: Makes a nice present for your girlfriend.

In Dragon Age II, Isabela notes that since she's usually the only female on her ship and doesn't typically let her crewmen touch her, she makes sure they get plenty of "alone time." If Hawke's sister Bethany is taken to the circle Isabela makes sure to send her plenty of erotic books to "help her through the nights".

And in the first game, Oghren remarks that he deals with "tension" by "polishing his sword" and asks Alistair if he does the same; when Alistair reacts with shocked embarrassment ("I think that's private!" and "You do it in the open, where other people can see you? That's disgusting!") Oghren pretends to have meant the comment innocently.

Considering he has a similar conversation with Wynn about Alistair 'twirling his pike' (it turns out he was being serious), it's possible he actually wasn't making any implications.

In No More Heroes 2, pay attention to Travis after Henry wakes up from his dream fight with Mimmy. He's sitting in his chair jerking off, and freaks when Henry wakes up. It gets even funnier when you hear the Bizarre Jelly theme in the background.

When Jak is challenged to beat a score in Jak 3: Wastelander, Daxter's reply is that Jak "beats" things all the time.

In Team Fortress 2, the Scout (a young 20-something) has a throwable weapon called the Mad Milk, a jar of what is described in-game as a "non-milk substance". If that isn't clue enough, characters that get hit by Mad Milk give the same responses as when they're hit by Jarate.

One of the side effects of Zouken's magical parasite worms on Sakura is increased sexual frustration, which she tries to cope with through masturbation. It doesn't work, but she moves on to Shirousoon enough.

Another is Shirou's erotic dream about Tohsaka in the same route. It's implied that this is something related to Rider and Sakura when we see Tohsaka's eyes, as they are the same as Rider's real ones. Also, he awakens with the same drained feeling as when Sakura has been leeching his magical energy. However, it's merely played as something to embarrass Shirou and never comes up again after talking to Tohsaka the next day.

In Super Dangan Ronpa 2, there are at least two occassions where Sonia is heavily implied to have masturbated. She refers to it as something dirty and her country mustn't know about it or else she can't become the queen anymore.

Miu in New Dangan Ronpa V3 jokes about this several times, insinuating that most of the boys are having "tug sessions" when nobody is looking.

In Katawa Shoujo, Lilly does this while Hisao is blindfolded in their third h-scene.

Yami to Boushi to Hon no Tabibito has one of the only scenes where this isn't played for squick, comedy, or both. Hazuki gets herself off twice thinking of her best friend/adoptive older sister Hatsumi, whom she is madly in love with. The second time is more subtle, but she does it on Hatsumi's bed...

Grisaia no Kajitsu: Mostly used for comedy, but in general the novell doesn't really skirt around the fact that it's female cast masturbates. At one point Amane sneaks into protagonist Yuuji's room trying to surprise him, when she doesn't find him, thinking he won't be back for some time, she starts to get it on in his bed, much to the annoyance of the meanwhile arrived Yuuji. In one route the girls actually discuss using Yuuji as masturbation material.

Doki Doki Literature Club! has Yuri- who's obsession with the player has been cranked up to 11 by Monika- admits in a crazed state that she masturbates to both the player's poems, and with the pen she stole from him. It's also suggested she cuts herself to add to her sexual stimulation.

Web Animation

In the Matt N Dusty episode "We Are Legend", Dusty has to choose between pleasuring himself in an airport restroom or spending time with Matt (literally the last living thing on Earth). He ends up dragging the whole airport restroom down to the lobby.

The Spanish Super Hero spoof Cálico Electrónico has a Running Gag about every time Ms. Fanservice character "La Ladrona" appears, the title character goes to the bathroom, where some... particular sounds... are covered by Calico singing (badly) opening themes of several old cartoons, the one from the Spanish dub of Captain Tsubasa being the most favored.

The Flash series Pulp Phantom has the "Vincent and Mia" scene, but with Darth Maul and Queen Amidala instead. Maul is taking his time in the bathroom and talks into the mirror:

Maul: You're going to say "good night" and walk out the door. Door leads to ship, ship leads to home, home leads to jerking off... [grins] Jerking off leads to the Dark Side.

When Tex returns as a ghost and mentions that she's beeen watching the Blue team, Tucker awkwardly asks if she had been watching all the time, while nervously glancing at a rock with the words: "Tucker's rock! Keep out!" painted on. Tex then says he ought to be ashamed of himself.

There's also a full story arc about Dora helping Faye to tame her libido.

Marten at one point tells a story from his adolescence, when his mother (a fetish model/dominatrix) cheerily informed him she'd put a bottle of lotion under the sink in his bathroom. When he asked her why, she told him he'd figure it out.

Honeybee Samuel's curse afflicting Candi in the Ciem Webcomic Series makes it so that masturbation is the only thing (never explicitly mentioned in the comics) that keeps Candi sane when she begins having Erotic Dreams about Denny. When she decides she doesn't like resorting to that, especially after she gets Donte back, she has actual sex with him regularly to avoid the need. The books intend to give a little more mention to her issue.

Unbeknowst to him, Gary's activity is used as "background music" for Matt and Dillon's lovemaking.

Zii, watching all-male pornography while calling DiDi's name. She does not notice the contradiction there.

There's a weird example (which isn't actually masturbation) in El Goonish Shive. Elliot completely fails at fantasizing about women, which his girlfriend Sarah and her friend Susan discuss at length. Susan thinks he should be praised for his restraint, while Sarah thinks it isn't healthy.

In Jet Dream, while Marlene claims a lack of interest in romance of any sort after her sex change, she also makes several veiled references to using "the science of vibration" or her "Jet Dream Vibrostick" to deal with her new feminine urges.

The webcomic Sexy Losers had an entire storyline, "Mike's Left Hand", where the title character was a shameless, guiltless chronic masturbator. He even wrote books and taught classes on how to masturbate. His sister was later shown to be exactly the same way. Mike's roommate, unable to avoid him, steadily went insane (though he eventually recovered).

Wonderella shows here that she'd rather play "Hello Kitty The Home Game if you know what I mean" than save the city from monsters and stuff.

And there's "Lil' Pinky" the robot spy. The places he has been... the wonders he has seen...

In Sabrina Online, the title character gets walked in on by her roommate during a "hands-on" cybersex session with her (as yet unseen) online boyfriend, "RC". (Whom Amy dubs "Sticky Fingers").

Belkar recommend to a half-naked implied sex partner that, while he finished his sandwich(es), she should start a "solo adventure" until he could join the quest. This did not go over entirely well with the entire audience, or the presumed audience.

Belkar also made an onanistic reference when one of his party-mates was turned into a female by a cursed belt. Upon seeing that character restored to his proper form, he asked where the hot chick had gone off to; when told that 'she would never be coming back,' he responded with "that's okay, I can always preserve the memory of her for when I'm... alone." Of course, he's merely trying to Squick out Roy, who he knows was the girl during a moment of Gender Bender.

Quickly mentionned with Amber and her Homoerotic Dream of Nay, more relevant to the plot is Alex's habit; he borderlines asexuality, except for his masturbation habit, which apparently takes precious time he could use playing videogames. And then he meets Tom.

Jamie also has a scene of this nature about Charlie that's much more disturbing than sexy because of his massive guilt/sexuality issues.

One of Davan's previous girlfriends in Something Positive nearly broke up with him because she was disturbed that he masturbated. They compromised; he could still masturbate, but only if she was doing all the work.

It does this a lot with Hazel during the early part of the strip, emphasizing the fact that she hasn't had sex for a while.

It also has a very open view on masturbation, and treats it as normal behaviour. Several strips revolve around the female characters buying or using vibrators.

In Dear Children, this is presumably why Devin keeps inserting his penis into inappropriate objects, resulting in his half-sister Emma having to help him get loose. If he and Emma are telling the truth about this, that is.

Web Original

Mackenzie, the protagonist of Tales of MU, masturbates in her sleep due to her nature as a repressed Horny Devil.

"The lotion is for your hands and face, alright? I can hear it from my office."

In Look a Vlog, Will is dragged out of the bathroom by Emily. When she asks what he was doing, he says, "Masturbating." Then goes back in.

Beautiful Agony: It's full of this trope. Only, like, two or three of the video clips on that site show sexual intercourse. And even then they don't really show it, since all the videos are only from the neck up. The most you'd see of a second person would be mad snogging.

Buzzfeed once did a video on the things girls do when they're home alone, which showed all sorts of funny/random/gross things someone might do without anyone else around. Later they made a follow-up video "What Guys Do When They're Home Alone", and let's just say it was a lot shorter.

In one episode, Mayor West is shown trying to marry his right hand (which his left tries to object to).

In the episode "Wasted Talent", there's a flashback where Peter as a kid asks a tour guide in a museum: "Why did all the dinosaurs die out?" He responds: "Because you touch yourself at night."

The episode "PTV" has a send-up of The Waltons closing tag, where various family members reflect on the episode's events and say their good nights. Here, John Boy doesn't respond initially, and then shouts out in frustration, "Dammit, can't a guy masturbate in this house?"

In the episode "Barely Legal", when Meg becomes obsessed with Brian:

Meg: I'm going to the mall later, maybe you can come and help me pick out some underwear. Brian: Uh, I don't think that's going to be a possibility, uh, I have plans, with Chris! Chris and I have plans this afternoon! Chris: We do? Brian: Yeah, yeah! We're doing that thing, we're doing what you usually do on a Thursday afternoon! Chris: Masturbate? Brian: That's it, that's what we're going to do together. Chris: Well, maybe back to back, but I gotta tell you, I'm not 100% on this.

In "Stewie Kills Lois", Meg brings a pack of hot dogs to her room, and says: "I'm gonna pretend you're the New York Knicks!" Peter later mentions that he has to buy hot dogs because "we keep running out for some reason".

In "Partial Terms of Endearment", when Peter thinks he's going to be in a threesome, Meg mentions that she had a "onesome" once.

Chris is also portrayed to masturbate more often than an average teenager would, especially in the episode "German Guy" where Lois shows the family Chris' blanket is completely hard as a rock and then shatters to pieces when Lois drops it because of Chris doing nothing but masturbating in his room all day and Lois believes the washing machine got pregnant somehow. When Chris comes downstairs to see everyone, his own clothes shatter to pieces the same way as his blanket did.

In "Saving Private Brian", when Brian and Stewie join the army, they're talking at night, and one guy yells, "You know, you guys are really making it hard to masturbate!" prompting another guy to yell, "Not for me!"

The whole plot in the American Dad! episode "A Smith In Hand". Stan tries to teach Steve to sublimate the "urge" with arts and crafts, like he does. However, Stan gets hurt and the doctor prescribes an ointment; in the process of applying it, he accidentally masturbates and, realizing for the first time in his life how good it feels, gets addicted.

Another mention in "The People vs. Martin Sugar" when Jeff is forced to quit smoking pot cited it's for his medical condition. Jeff hides in different places and get caught by Francine.

In another episode where Steve finally gets a date with a hot girl, he tells her he needs to "check his schedule", so he opens up a day planner and we see that his plans for every night say, "Whack it".

This trope directly leads to the main plot of the episode "Going Downklok" in Metalocalypse: the band members masturbate so much due to having no fans to sleep with that they develop carpal tunnel syndrome, and they have to deal with trying to release their sexual tension without masturbation, ranging from exercise to attempting to get into the pants of their female producer. Nathan succeeding in seducing Abigail was the final straw: after a series of bad decisions on Nathan's part, him getting the girl Pickles wanted caused Pickles to quit the band.

An episode of Moral Orel deals with Reverend Putty's private shame over his masturbation.

God's Chef runs with it to disturbing extremes. In order to masturbate and still go to heaven, Orel concludes he must become 'God's Chef' and inject ladies with his 'delicious glaze'. He ends up impregnating the entire neighborhood.

Rusty rents The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas and invites Brock to watch it with him. When Brock demurs, Rusty admits the movie was "meant to be watched solo a mano." He's also deaf to warnings that the movie doesn't live up to its title.

24 is seen perusing porn several times due to the low chance of meeting women in his henching job.

24: Don't knock or anything! It's not like I live with 80 guys and no women, so there is no chance that I am masturbating!

This is revealed to be the reason that Rusty invented the "joy can". And the reason that it locks from the inside.

The Monarch is at a monitor watching Dr. Girlfriend seduce Rusty and absently starts fondling himself, breaking off abruptly when a henchman wanders through for a glass of juice.

In the "Trial of the Monarch" episode, in a flashback, Dr. Girlfriend is handed her old superhero costume by her old boyfriend (Phantom Limb). She remarks that there are now "hard chunks" in the fabric, which Limb claims are tears. Monarch naturally becries this, claiming that Limb was "just pounding his invisible meat" into it, at which point he's cut off by Dr. Venture, who doesn't want the boys hearing about that. But then Hank protests it's okay because he's seen Dean do it, at which point Brock quickly gets the boys to another topic. The judge didn't want to hear it either:

Looney Tunes: Bob Clampett's "An Itch in Time" has a scene of a dog scooting around on his hindquarters after being bitten by a flea; at one point, he pauses to tell the audience, "Hey, I'd better cut this out, I may get to like it!" The over-the-top line had been included for the studio's annual in-house gag reel, with the expectation that the Hays Office would order it excised (and overlook the lesser jokes they actually wanted to keep) before the short was released to the public; amazingly, it was allowed to go out intact.

Drawn Together has Foxxy show Wooldoor, in elaborate detail, how she masturbates in "Clum Babies". Because it's about as sexual as a potato singing "Baa Baa Black Sheep", Wooldoor masturbating is shown multiple times. It involves breaking his own finger, among other things. Go figure.

In one episode of The Critic when Margo Sherman has to attend a debutante's ball, she wears a white dress symbolizing her virginity — except (as she points out) the gloves, which are hussy white.

Dressmaker: We dressmakers have a very strict code, so I need to know. Do you deserve to wear virginial white? Because if you don't, you'll have to wear an off white, what we call a "hussy white". So which will it be? White white? Margo Sherman: Yes... um, except for the gloves.

When you wake up in the morning, what's the first thing that you see? It's your morning wood! "Hello, I'm Bruce Campbell, and I can't start my day by waxing my morning wood."

One of the nerds, Daniel, apparently made a New Year's Resolution not to masturbate. When he breaks it, Baby New Year comes to kill him for breaking the resolution. He backs off when Daniel realizes being strangled turns him on.

Community

Tropes HQ

TVTropes is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available from thestaff@tvtropes.org. Privacy Policy